Daniel Oberhaus

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“[It] Will Have Value Even If There Is Nothing But Silence From The Heavens”

April 8, 2016 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

Marconi wanted to talk to Martians, and who wouldn’t?

Was just reading “Building a Language to Communicate With Extraterrestrials,” Daniel Oberhaus’ smart Atlantic piece about scientists trying to develop a cosmic lingua franca, and it reminded me of a Dennis Overbye NYT article from early in the Aughts. In that piece, Overbye profiled Dr. Douglas Vakoch, the young “Interstellar Message Group Leader” at the SETI Institute, who was then just starting his career, hopeful we would someday make intelligible contact. Vakoch, who was interviewed two years ago at the New Yorker site, maintains hope, though he knows there are no guarantees. 

Overbye’s opening:

PHILADELPHIA— There is probably only one person on earth although, one hopes, not in the universe — whose business card identifies him as ”Interstellar Message Group Leader.”

That would be Dr. Douglas Vakoch, aspiring psychotherapist, philosopher, self-described exo-semiotician, and resident psychologist at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., which is dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. It is his job to come with ideas for a response in case any searchers ever discern, amid the crackle and hiss of radio waves from outer space, the equivalent of a ”Hi there — what’s your name?”

It was the search for a suitable answer that found Dr. Vakoch, standing on a lonely sidewalk here late one chilly evening looking for the back way into a brick building. He was in town to attend and discuss a new play about an outer space organism that turns people’s skins green, and to give a talk about the problems of composing interstellar interspecies messages.

In between, he was hoping to squeeze in a visit to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, a homework assignment for getting a license to practice psychotherapy in California, his home state, but the building was locked. Of course, as a SETI researcher, Dr. Vakoch knows that frustration is part of the process.

The receipt of a signal from another civilization, astronomers involved in SETI say, would be one of the greatest events in the history of humanity. The question of how or whether to respond, they say, is too important to be left to the last minute.

”The initial message we send, if we ever do send any, would create the first impression for what would be a dialogue that would be occurring over many generations,” Dr. Vakoch said.

In the interest of making a good impression, and perhaps counteracting the burble of Survivor, automobile ads and political news spreading outward through the galaxy on radio and television waves, Dr. Vakoch is using a grant from the John Templeton Foundation to devise a message that encodes the notion of altruism, which many biologists and humanists would like to think is a pillar of any civilization.

It is an effort, he says, that will have value even if there is nothing but silence from the heavens. ”By thinking about who we would want to represent ourselves, we’re forced to reflect in a different way than we usually do about what our deepest values are,” Dr. Vakoch said.

”And by attempting to put some of the ideas and values most important to us in an abstract universal language, we’re forced to clarify what we mean by those things.”•

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“There’s Not Very Much Point To Have A Man Walking On The Moon”

June 23, 2015 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech | Permalink

Excellent job by Daniel Oberhaus of Vice Motherboard with his smart interview of Noam Chomsky and theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss about contemporary scientific research and space exploration. Chomsky is disturbed by the insinuiation of private enterprise into Space Race 2.0, a quest for trillions, while Krauss thinks the expense of such an endeavor permanently makes it a moot point. I’m not so sure about the “permanently” part. Both subjects encourage unmanned space missions as a way to speed up science while scaling back costs. The opening:

Vice:

The cost of entry is so high for space, and arguably for science as well, that the general public seems to be excluded from partaking right from the start. In that light, what can really be done to reclaim the commons of space?

Noam Chomsky:

If you look at the whole history of the space program, a lot of things of interest were discovered, but it was done in a way that sort of ranges from misleading to deceitful. So what was the point of putting a man on the moon? A person is the worst possible instrument to put in space: you have to keep them alive, which is very complex, there are safety procedures, and so on. The right way to explore space is with robots, which is now done. So why did it start with a man in space? Just for political reasons.

Lawrence Krauss:

Of course we should [pressure the government to divert more funds to space programs]. But again, if you ask me if we should appropriate funds for the human exploration of space, than my answer is probably not. Unmanned space exploration, from a scientific perspective is far more important and useful. If we’re doing space exploration for adventure, then it’s a totally different thing. But from a scientific perspective, we should spend the money on unmanned space exploration.

Noam Chomsky:

John F. Kennedy made it a way of overcoming the failure of the Bay of Pigs and the fact that the Russians in some minor ways had gotten ahead of us, even though the American scientists understood that that wasn’t true. So you had to have a dramatic event, like a man walking on the moon. There’s not very much point to have a man walking on the moon except to impress people.

As soon as the public got bored with watching some guy stumble around on the moon, those projects were ended. Then space exploration began as a scientific endeavor. Things continue to develop like this to a large extent. Take, again, the development of computers. That was presented under the rubric of defense. The Pentagon doesn’t say, ‘We’re taking your tax money so that maybe your grandson can have an iPad.’ What they say is, ‘We’re defending ourselves from the Russians.’ What we’re actually doing is seeing if we can create the cutting edge of the economy.•

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“I Think It’s Just Baffling That We’re Not Massively Larger”

December 2, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Alcor, the cryonics non-profit, isn’t dead or dying, but it’s seen livelier days. Like McDonald’s, it’s seeing surprising market resistance. Immortality by this method is still viewed by most as dubious or creepy or a luxury item, though even the 1% haven’t really embraced the deep freeze. Dr. Max More, the outfit’s CEO, spoke to Daniel Oberhaus of Vice about trying to overcome psychological, financial and technological barriers. The opening:

Question:

So, how’s Alcor doing?

Max More:

It’s growing, but much too slowly. I think it’s just baffling that we’re not massively larger because we’ve been around for 42 years. We’ve had periods of higher growth, so in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s we had a growth rate of 25-30 percent. It’s just dropped after that and gotten into the low single figures. We actually stopped growing a year or two ago and I think it’s because the dues were raised too high and the economy was doing badly. The [Alcor] board wanted to reduce dependence on donations by having higher membership dues, but they went too far. We’ve brought them down since then, we’ve made two reductions and now there are student discounts and discounts for long time members.

Question:

How much does it cost to get frozen indefinitely? 

Max More:

There are the main membership dues which are $530 per year and $180 per year on top of that for the Comprehensive Member Standby plan, which basically means that’s money that you pay into this fund and in turn we guarantee that wherever you are, we’ll be there. We just introduced a new policy which says if you provide $20,000 in addition to the $80,000 or $200,000 [that it takes to cryopreserve your head and body, respectively], then we’ll waive the CMS fee. This really helps younger members because an extra $20,000 in life insurance is really very little for them, whereas $180 per year actually feels a lot worse.

I gave a talk a few years ago called ‘Join the .00004%’ (because that’s how small we are) and that’s ludicrous to me. There are plenty of crazy ideas out there with much less backing that get much more support, and we have actual evidence for what we’re doing! We’ve been around for almost 43 years and only have 1008 members—that’s not very many. So why is that? Obviously, there is some expense to it, but I don’t think that’s the main thing.

Question:

What’s the main hurdle?

Max More:

There are major cultural and psychological barriers that have to be overcome and I think eventually they will be.•

 

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